"The agency expects to award approximately 40 cooperative grants agreements ranging from approximately $100,000 to $700,000," it said Thursday.
To do that, it is seeking project proposals that "directly identify, characterise, or implement" methane capture-and-use technology such as technology transfer, training, feasibility studies and potential site databases.
The EPA will award funding for projects held from September 2008 to September 2011.
Parties who wish to submit proposals must do so by February 22 of next year.
The EPA encourages international governments as well as public and private non-profit groups to submit ideas, especially when they relate to development innovations in the Methane to Markets partner countries of Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine and Vietnam.
The Methane to Markets Partnership initiative promotes capture-and-use projects in coal mining as well as oil and gas systems, landfills and animal waste management.
Earlier this year, the EPA's Coalbed Methane Outreach Program made public the capabilities of a new web-based coal mine methane and utilisation international database.
Developed at the request of Methane to Markets for coal, it has compiled the information on more than 200 projects worldwide with varying levels of information on each. Results can be sorted using five factors: country, mine name, mine status, project type or region.
